Written by a human, for humans, always.
When you become good at something...
Really good...
People notice.
Now this is where things become really interesting...
And potentially problematic for you.
What gets you noticed...
Is contribution.
Contribution toward something that is greater than yourself.
Whether it is a team...
A business...
A family...
Whatever that unit is that you are contributing toward...
That is what gets you noticed.
But there is something strange that begins to happen when people get noticed...
People begin to put them on a pedestal.
What happens with the pedestal?
You are "lifted".
Put into a position of recognition for your contributions...
You are "set apart".
This becomes the place where so many individuals become trapped in their lives.
This state of "apartness" can begin to make us believe ourselves to actually be "apart" from others.
In some cases, we see ourselves as more important.
In others, we begin to be more capable.
But in these differences, one thing is common...
Hubris.
Ego.
Vanity.
For some people, it can even expand to the perception of being deific or god-like.
The result of all of this...
Is that we end up losing touch with what put us in that position in the first place.
Contribution.
We begin to contribute less.
Demand more.
See others as lesser than us in value and worth.
Believe ourselves to be outside the scope or responsibilities that are required of others.
In our being lifted...
And allowing ourselves to become lifted in this manner...
We begin to set the stage for our own fall.
The more we believe ourselves to be separate...
The more others begin to see what we have become...
And the less willing they are to keep the pedestal supported.
The higher the pedestal...
The less stable it becomes...
Requiring more support.
But when the support disappears...
Nothing keeps the pedestal lifted...
And at some point, there is a breaking point.
Now there are two aspects to this...
Some people do not realize that the breaking point may not appear as we believe.
The multi-millionaire or billionaire may not lose all of their money or assets...
But that does not mean there is not a cost that is incurred from the break.
Some of these individuals keep their money...
But lose the ability to ever work in any industry again and lose all of their contacts that they believed had been their friends...
Alone in a palace that reminds them eternally of their incredible failures and how all of those they trusted never really had any care for them...
With family members who despise them and cannot wait for their deaths to happen, excited for that day to come sooner.
The other aspect of this is that the trap of the pedestal is not limited to those we all see and know in the spotlight.
The lifting and breaking can happen under any conditions...
Microversions of it play out all the time.
There is a reason that so many turn to things such as drugs and alcohol in their lives...
Microversions of falls they endured, which they could not handle the fallout of.
People who thought they were important and discovered they were little more than cogs.
People who thought they were loved and discovered they were being used.
People who thought everything they did would give them what they sought...
Only to discover that they had missed every opportunity for what they sought.
The trap of the pedestal exists all around us.
But the question becomes...
How do we avoid the trap?
The answer is in understanding that the pedestal itself is the trap.
Allowing yourself to be lifted up and set apart is the trap.
Seeing that as you get higher...
You lose the ability to contribute...
Because you are too high up to get down except through a fall.
So what do you do?
When others seek to elevate you...
Accept in honor only...
And stay on the ground...
Continue to contribute.
Pay attention to your own hubris, ego, and vanity, and do not allow them to make you believe you are truly set apart.
When others want to lift you up higher...
You put yourself into a position of serving.
You keep others at the same level as yourself.
Understand that although they may want to lift you...
That you can instead ask them to stand beside you as an equal.
When they get on their knees...
Either you get on your knees as well...
Or you pick them up from the ground...
Always maintaining what is true...
That we are not greater or lesser...
But rather different parts of a cohesive ecosystem that need the best from each other.
When you recognize each other not as greater or lesser...
But as equally important, yet distinct parts to the greater whole...
Only then can you begin to avoid the trap of the pedestal.
We live in a world that is so ready to idolize certain things...
While simultaneously ready to diminish other things...
To put values of greater and lesser on everything in sight...
To judge...
To react...
To make allies where there are wolves...
And to make enemies where there are none.
To create heroes and villains...
Making the world black and white in appearance...
And to drain the color out of everything we see.
To fabricate stories to appear one way to others...
While distributing misinformation to demonize others.
To close us off from other ways the world could work...
So that we only see a path that benefits certain interests...
Often to our own detriment.
All of these are markings and consequences of the trap of the pedestal...
People wanting to lift certain ideas and people...
People wanting to stay atop their pedestals...
People wanting to topple these towers of hubris.
Be wary of the trap of the pedestal.
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